Smoke From a Chinook Wind
by Lena Carr
Summary: Anyone else would have left the strangers to freeze solid as the lost dead men. But Walt Longmire was, as both his best friend and his chief deputy would often say, a soft-hearted fool. Any other band of bandits would have shot the lawman (and eaten his horse, saddle and all). But Rick Grimes was not above crazy acts of mercy, and too many of his group had a thing about horses.
1. Storm Moving In

**Author's Notes at the end.**

* * *

Walt Longmire cut the strangers' trail well south of Durant – long past noon, and with the north sky gone cold and tall with grey, snow heavy clouds. The sun was westerly and already painting the Bighorns with rose and gold. Even the slighter humps and ridges of the thin snow blanket cast blue shadows.

It was the twentieth of November, by Ruby's careful count, and twenty seven months since the world had tried to come to an end.

He pulled up the black mare off the ridgeline and let her blow. Dog swung wide and made his own way down the rise, tail up and ears pricked. Walt hissed a whistle through his teeth and Dog stopped long enough to look back quizzically. When he saw Walt and the horse weren't moving, Dog kept moving downhill, but with more caution.

The black mare was willing to stand where she was, a bit out of the wind, and let Walt get a lay of the land.

Old 87 lay to the west, towards the Bighorns rising to meet the setting sun. Southerly, the Sussex cut-off ran east, connecting 87 to the interstate, and then (Walt knew, from Before, when he could cover 150 miles in a day, not fifteen) becoming Trabing road, and angling further south.

All of that was nice, but not quite relevant to the moment, which was a pair of wrecked vehicles, a wide tangle of dark mud interrupting the broad sweep of snow, and – well off the road – a tiny patch of red.

The mare grew tired of standing still and tossed her head, snorting. The landscape before him remained still and quiet. Walt pulled the 30-30 from the scabbard and let the reins slack. He sat back in the saddle as the mare picked her way down the slope to the roadway. Dog wuffed from where he stood nearly hock deep in a drift but bounded out to take the flank.

Walt was not Henry Standing Bear, who could track the flight of a buzzard on a cloudless summer day, but it didn't take an expert tracker to suss the bones of the tale. Ten minutes brought him down to the road but changed little of what the snow and the shadows had told him from the hill.

A pair of vehicles had come up from the south on 87 and met the roadblock that Walt, Branch, and the rest of Durant's able-bodied population had drug into the roadway two summers before. Forced to turn around or head east, they had chosen the latter. And had met the Jasper crew in their barely-functional Tacoma. The little pickup had come up from behind the billboard and attempted to force the second vehicle off the road, only to hit the slick edge of the spill and spin out of control.

Abandoning purposeful motion had evidently let Todd and Abigail Looks Far accomplish what Walt would have sworn they couldn't have done deliberately, and shoved the Bronco II into the ditch. The Bronco was still there, canted over on its side, and the Tacoma a fire-gutted wreck beside it.

The travelers, whoever they were, had evidently taken exception to the interruption in their travel plans.

Dog circled the trampled dirt around the Bronco II, nose to the ground and his ruff up. Walt reined in the black mare and let her stand a minute on the tracks that the second vehicle had made, heading east. He scanned the edges of the horizon, and swung down, cursing an old man's diminishing eyesight. He kept a firm hold on the reins – the mare was a solid sort, but the storm was still bearing down, and Walt had no intention of ending up afoot so far from home and supper.

There was quite a lot of foot tracks, and something Walt figured was a motorcycle. A few bits of fresh debris – scraps of paper, a rag or two, but no more than a handful of shells. One red 12 gauge casing, two or three bits of brass from something like a 45. The tracks were a mixed lot – boots, mostly, worn and newer, larger and smaller. At least one pair that hadn't been sold together, in the Before. One smaller pair that had gone over the whole mess – Walt's mind kept going back to _crime scene_ , but _ambush site_ was probably closer. There were marks in the snow of smaller hands to go with those tracks, and Walt figured that was the person collecting the brass.

A couple red smears in the mud, which would account for the scraps of paper and gauze bandages. The Bronco was empty, even to the gas tank. The factory gas cap had gone the way of the rest of the world, but there was a filthy rag dropped on the gravel, still stinking of fuel.

None of this was all that unusual, or frankly unexpected. The Looks Far pair had been eating off the leavings of the northward road for the whole of the summer for two years now – never yet bold enough to touch one of Walt's own, nor brazen enough to be caught hitting travelers where either Durant nor the Cheyenne could execute them for it. Walt had seen half-a-dozen similar scenes, and heard of more from Mathias, police chief of the North Cheyenne.

What was strange, though, was the pair of graves beside the road. Shallow graves, little more than scraped together gravel and filthy mud, and without more marker than a handful of paler stones arranged in a cross shape. But they were graves, with markers.

Just to be sure, Walt kicked aside enough dirt to ID both Todd and Abigail Looks Far. It was Todd, sure enough, with a set of bullet holes in his chest and a deep mark on his temple. The bloody mess that was left of the face of the other corpse defied Walt's memory. He paused, then dug further down the gravel, the melting snow clinging to his gloves.

The right hand still held an even dozen gold rings. Walt stared at the withered flesh for a long moment – blood crusting on the wrinkled fingers, dirt under the broken nails.

Dog came over, his nose working furiously.

"No," Walt said. "Not people. Not where I can see you."

He let the hand drop back into the grave and gathered up the rifle before he grunted back to his feet. Dog laid his ears back and sulked. Walt ignored him and turned around where he stood, looking at the snow-dusted mud again.

The Bronco II was empty. The east-running lane of the cut-off was trampled with a multitude of tracks – one wide bodied vehicle on light tires, a heavy-loaded motorcycle, and seven or nine sets of boots. Walt frowned at the monochrome snow and sank to his heels, trying to figure the tracks.

 _Two vehicles, plus a motorscooter. All well loaded. The Bronco here, a loss. Two bandit graves._

 _No traveler graves._

 _Two vehicles headed east. Seven walking people, also walking east._

Walt passed a hand over his mouth. He twisted around to look north over his shoulder, at the building storm. Looked again at the graves.

He sighed, tucked the rifle away, and swung back in the saddle.

"Come on, Dog," he said, as he turned the black mare east and north. "If this don't work out, we better hope it kills us." He'd never hear the end of it from Henry, Cady, or Vic, otherwise.

* * *

Two miles north of the turn off, Rick raised a hand.

More felt than seen, the group – half the group – shifted off the road, splitting roughly up the middle and transforming from a narrow snake to a prickly snapping turtle, facing in all directions and willing to do damage. Abraham was in the rear, with Sasha to back him up, and with Morgan right and Carl left, they weren't going to be taken by surprise.

Footsteps crunched through the snow, light and quick. Tara, hustling up to support the point man, and find out what he had seen.

 _Point man_ being Rick, and as for what he had seen…

"Hey," Tara said, "What is it?"

Rick shook his head even as he said, "Not sure. Too quiet." Tara, being Tara, gave him a look and an eye-roll.

"Can't be the Abominable Snowman, then. I heard you can always tell them, a mile off." She was laughing under her breath, but that was Tara. In spite of himself, Rick felt a grin spreading across his face.

"Well, it might be Yeti, you ever think of that?" Rick asked, checking the safety on his rifle, and then drawing the Python. Four rounds. He checked over his shoulder at the group – four pairs of bodies down off the road. "You hear anything?"

Tara shook her head, then jerked her cap off her head and listened. Shaking her head again, she cuddled the AR close and pulled the knit fabric back over her tangled hair. "Not a thing. Not even…" she trailed off, and Rick could see when the realization hit her.

"Not even Daryl's bike," Rick said. He twisted again, whistled through his teeth and waved for the rest of the group to rally up.

They came up in a purposeful rush – the wings first, Carl and Noah, both slim and fast despite their layers, meeting Morgan and Eugene as they came. Eugene would never be the killer that the rest of them were, but the man had lost much of his weight and some of his clumsy terror on the road. Now, the Texan kept pace with Morgan as the smaller man slid into the huddle, and mostly – mostly – avoided fanning anyone with his sidearm. Last of all were Abraham – a massive bear of fur coat and size 13 boots – and Sasha, her rifle ready in her arms and her outer glove off her trigger hand. Together they collapsed to the ground around Rick in a clatter of packs and rifle butts.

Predictably, Abraham Ford was the first to speak. "Grimes, what the hell? My balls are about to drop off from all the icecubes hanging off my short hairs!"

Rick waved off the former sergeant's protest. "Can't hear Daryl's bike. Eugene, what's the time?"

Eugene fumbled at his coat. Automatically, both Abraham and Morgan pushed the muzzle of Eugene's weapon upwards.

"Sorry," Eugene mumbled, and slid the nine-mil back into its holster. "Fifteen-ten, boss. By my count, that would make the Suburban –"

"Six minutes late. Yeah."

A breath ran around the group – part profanity, part grief, part resolute fury. Rick turned away from their eyes, sucking in cold air from a hands-breath over the snow. Both sides of the horizon were clear – the road behind them a mess of footprints, ahead three dark lines of tire tracks in a field of white.

"We could fall back now," Eugene said. "The wrecked vehicles are little more than an hour away, on foot, and there was a culvert much closer than that…"

"No," Sasha said, dark finger curling over the trigger grip on the rifle. "No," echoed Carl.

Rick met Abraham's eyes. The big man's jaw clenched beneath his ruddy beard, but what he said was, "Your call, officer."

It always was. Go forward into the teeth of the black cat of uncertainty, which held the rest of their party in its claws. Fall back to a more defensible position, with nothing more than the scant supplies on their backs and what looked like a frozen hell bearing down on them. If there was ever a choice between a rock and a hard place…

Rick gathered his feet under him, ready to rise, and stopped. The low-key rumble of an off-road motorbike rose in volume, gaining an eerie whine, until it was nearly upon them. Over the slight rise, a cobbled-together mongrel of a motorcycle came into view, the rider scanning left and right. Rick rose to his feet and scrambled back up to the roadway. The bike slid passed him and abruptly cut velocity, skidding under the doubled weight of the rider, dual loaded saddle bags and a passenger riding pillion.

Rick came up on the pavement as Daryl Dixon righted the bike and jerked the scarves off his face. "Rick! Get your ass up here!" He turned back to speak to his rider, but the narrow-boned woman behind him was already scrambling off the bike, rifle in her hands. Daryl faced Rick as Carol slipped past him to the group on the roadside. Uncharacteristically, Daryl had not cut the bike off. Whatever it was, it needed the nine seconds that the bike took to crank from a cold start.

"C'mon! Get on, you gotta see this!"

Rick threw a glance at the group – at Carol Pelletier, a tiny shadow next to Abraham's hulking presence, pointing back east, the way she and Daryl had come, and at his son, as Carl split his attention between Carol's tumbling words and his father. Rick raised a hand – Carl shifted his shotgun to the other fist and raised a hand in response – and then Rick threw himself awkwardly on Daryl's bike, finding his place as the other man gunned the engine and headed back east.

* * *

 **/to be continued/**

* * *

 **Author's Notes:** Cross-over between Longmire and The Walking Dead. Canon divergence at S2.5- ish for Longmire, S5.5 - ish for The Walking Dead. Includes elements for the A &E/Netflicks show, Craig Johnson novels, and The Walking Dead tv show. Thanks, as always, for the world's greatest beta plus cheering section.

On-going multipart story. Rated T for canon-typical violence, plus a warning for Dixon mouth and Moretti mouth.


	2. Hail and Well-Met

**Author's Notes at the end.**

* * *

From the lee side of the hill, Walt watched the Suburban crest the ridge and slowly come to a stop. The noisy little motorcycle dropped down the backside of the slope and circled back to meet it. Both of the engines cut off. The vehicle doors opened and slowly spilled a double handful of people out on the road. The pair on the motorcycle stayed on board, the rider leaning on the handlebars while his passenger spoke with the Suburban's driver. Two of the group had immediately taken up guard positions on the road. Another pair boosted a third up top to tug at the tie down ropes and begin tossing down packs in a no-nonsense fashion.

Beside Walt, Dog watched with a fascination he normally reserved for bacon. The wind brought snatches of words to Walt, but nothing beyond a sense of tone from the speakers – caution and a sort of careful optimism – traveled against the wind.

As he watched them, Walt made a few observations. They were experienced travelers. They had enough firearms to choke anyone who tried to chew them up like rabbit. They had toilet paper, but were short on water. They were not used to the weather, this far out on the plains.

He was split on approaching them – the group last spring had left scars on both his ego and on the Durant community – until the last of the women opened the cargo door of the Suburban and called out. Two kids – a tow-head girl, and a slightly smaller child of indeterminate gender – slid out of the back seat, along with a dark-haired woman of advanced pregnancy. The pregnant woman – plus two others – made their way down the slope off the near side of the road, where they rucked down their pants and squatted to piss.

The kids ran some of their energy off, keeping between the boundaries set by the lead-and-tail guards. Some of the main group walked back-packs out to the guards, who slung them on without losing sight of the horizon. One of the forward guards was a black woman with – of all things – a long sword slung down her back. The tow-headed girl ran smack into the dark woman's legs, and she dropped a hand to the girl's head, with a white-toothed grin that even Walt could see was warm and welcoming across the distance.

He hesitated, counted again.

Five women – two that were probably pregnant, and not counting the rider on the bike. Seven men – including the skinny fellow with the huge jacket, who might be anything except someone who could take Walt in a stand-up fight. The guy on the bike, the big guy from the truck, and the truck driver, they would be the big problems, plus the gal with the sword. Plus the bike passenger, plus the two kids.

He did the math in his head, counting the long days until spring.

They'd be watering the soup and scrambling the eggs for certain. And no one back in Durant would be happy with him.

The blond little girl swung around the dark woman's leg, and the child's laughter carried clear and far down the wind.

Walt slunk back and looked at the reddish-grey mass of short-grass grizzly that gazed back at him, puppy-eyes pleading.

"Okay, Dog, let's see if they want to parlay."

Tucking the rifle close, Walt rolled twice across the gravel, until he was well below line of sight from the road, and then rose to his feet, crouching carefully as he went to collect the black mare. Dog low-crawled behind him until he, too, was off the gravel, then bounced ahead, head up and nose working.

The culvert drain was deeper than it had been during the summer, and the black mare baulked at the ice-rimmed water. Walt gave the horse her head, reins loose on her neck, and willed her to find a way through. She snorted, tossed her head so her mane was a thundercloud over her neck, and backed up two lengths before turning downhill to a deeper, more narrow cut. Walt had half a moment's warning as the mare's hindquarters bunched under her, then she half-leapt, half-scrambled across the cut and up the other side. Dog easily cleared the stream behind them. Walt hung on and pointed the mare up towards the road.

There were feathers stroking the inside of his ribs, and his balls were floating somewhere around his spleen, when he urged the black mare up the last scramble from the creek to the roadway, cutting across the snow-packed asphalt between the group and the road behind them.

He had the reins in one hand, and the rifle across the saddlebow before him – carefully not pointing at the group, which was going to get him in serious trouble with Vic if the strangers ended up killing him. The black mare did not like the footing, and Walt didn't blame her, her hooves scrambling on the rocks as she made her way up to the road.

They had turned on him, rifles leveled, before the horse hit the black road.

Walt pulled up the black mare in the middle of the road, holding her still where everyone could get a look at each other. He noted how the bike passenger had twisted around, bringing the rifle down on the bike driver's shoulder as he stomped the bike back up. The truck driver cranked the vehicle, so the v-8 rumbled into life like a waking dragon. The forward guard tucked the little girl behind her, her scarf-wrapt head whipping back and forth as she tried to watch Walt and the road north at the same time. Half the group dropped to a knee where they were, the rest scampered to the far side of the vehicle or down the gravel on the far side of the road. The biker revved the engine and the rifle on his shoulder steadied, the muzzle a black circle pointing center mass at Walt. If the person holding that rifle fired, the biker wouldn't be hearing out of his right ear for a week.

Walt held the mare quiet and rested his elbows on the saddle horn. "Hey," he said, "Afternoon."

The tableau held, for all of thirty seconds, and then Dog got involved.

* * *

Daryl shouted back answers to Rick's questions – one person, mounted, armed but not immediately threatening – as they sped up the road. The front tire kicked snowmelt well up Rick's pants and the wind bit hard at his face. Over Daryl's shoulders, he could see the dark clouds building to the north. They hadn't hit the edge of the snowfall, but it was bound to reach them in the next few hours.

They needed to get off the road. They needed someplace warm, and they needed something to eat.

Continuing to move north was only an option because all of them knew how bad it was further south. Denver was nearly as bad as Atlanta had been, but this time they didn't have local knowledge of the ground. Every step they took was another into unguessed danger.

Every yard behind them was scorched ground, barren and fruitless. _You have to protect them. You have to feed them._

Rick's hands clenched on the sides of Daryl's coat as the motorcycle slowed and crested the next ridge. "Up here," Daryl said over his shoulder, spitting the words out. "The next rise." Rick nodded.

"No gunshots yet, go ahead and move up," he shouted in Daryl's ear.

What they found was…not what he had expected.

The Suburban was parked in the middle of the road, tire tracks neatly laid over the snow drifts spilled like milk across the black surface. Rick could trace the tread marks of the motorcycle up past the vehicle and back around again, and the stirred mess where Daryl had halted the bike beside Glenn's side of the truck. Then a faster, more careless sprint, with dirty snow laid like a rooster tail over the clean white frost and the bare pavement. Over it all were the muddy, snow-crusted footprints of the group, clustered around the back of the suburban – where the cargo gate still hung open – and along both sides.

This was more or less as it had been for the last two hours, as the Suburban had ferried the group forward, stuffed full of passengers, and then circled back around to gather the rest. They didn't have enough space to put them all in the vehicle. The overhead luggage rack was overfull to bursting. They couldn't have Rosita or Patty walk. They couldn't let Carl or Noah or Eugene ride in relative safety. They needed a place to bed down for however long the coming storm lasted.

They didn't have enough food.

All the heads in the road turned to look at Rick and Daryl as they topped the road. Daryl slowed the bike, put down his feet and let the bike roll forward another dozen yards.

"That him?" Rick asked.

"Yeah," Daryl answered. "Him, that big horse, and that big-ass mutt. Whoever they are, they ain't been missing many meals."

The man was down off his horse, and the group had clustered around the animal and its rider. Most of them had only turned briefly to look at Daryl and Rick. Their attention was focused at the front of the vehicle. Glenn, though, leaned his rifle over his shoulder and motioned the bike forward.

"Bring us around," Rick said. Daryl nodded and leaned forward.

When they had swung around, Rick saw what had caught all their attention.

A huge rough-coated beast lay sprawled in the road before the Suburban. Rosita sat on her rump beside the beast – a dog, Rick thought, although there was no telling – both arms flung around the animal's neck. There was a pale bundle of clothing draped over the reddish fur, and it was with a sense of horrified shock that Rick recognized his daughter as Judith lifted her head at the sound of the motorbike.

He flung himself from the bike, snatching the Python from its holster, and leveled it at the stranger standing by the black horse.

"What the fuck is going on here?" he snarled, the world gone grey and indistinct around the iron sight at the end of the revolver's barrel. In that uneven circle, the man's features – brown hat, blue scarf, seamed face, deep grey eyes – snapped into focus. "Who the _hell_ are you?"

Aaron stepped forward, his hands raised. "Rick, it's okay, really, it –"

Rick ignored him. Aaron trusted too many people. He'd trusted Rick, after all. "Start talking, now."

Maggie stuck her head around the other side of the horse, her hand on the soft nose. "Rick, wait. It's okay. I think it's okay, we should talk about this." Shawnie's high, light voice warbled from behind the horse, and Maggie shushed the little boy, bouncing him on her hip.

Michonne moved up, smooth as silk, to cover Rick's left side, as Daryl brought the bike around to the right. Even without turning his head, Rick could see Daryl pull out the crossbow and level it at the stranger.

The stranger raised one hand – fingers outspread, where they weren't holding the braided reins to the horse's bridle. "Hey. Just making an offer."

Rick was going to beat Aaron within an inch of his life. Stupid idiot never stopped believing the best of random bandits and thugs. And there was Glenn – Rick didn't know Glenn's excuse, and he didn't much care.

"Who are you?"

The big man – he was big, bigger than Abraham, and he had a rifle in his other hand – sighed. "Longmire. Walt Longmire."

"What do you want?" Rick stopped, glanced down at the pile of people and animal on the road. He didn't let the revolver drop. "Get Judith back." There was a bit of hesitation among the group, and Rick raised his voice. "I said get her back. Both of them."

"Daddy!" Judith chirped. "Dog! Dog!" She beat on the exposed chest of the animal. The big dog – it was a dog, more or less – beat its tail against the cracked pavement, and then twisted its head around to swipe a palm-wide tongue across Rosita's face. Rosita shook her head and wept harder. Judith laughed and sang again, in counter point to her thumping palms, "Dog, dog, dog, dog!"

Gabriel and Patti both shuffled forward – Pat to gather up Judith, and Gabe to slip his hands under Rosita's armpits. She shook her head but slowly released her grip on the dog. Rick kept his firearm trained on the stranger, who made a clicking sound with his tongue. The dog rolled back over and rose to stroll to the man's side, sitting down on one of his feet, practically under the nose of the horse.

"I asked you a question," Rick said.

The big man sighed and shook his head. "Like I was telling your man, here –" he gestured at Glenn, who stood watchful but with his rifle shouldered. "It's going to storm, bad, really quick now. You need to get off the road. There aren't many deadmen hereabouts, but the weather will kill you just as quick."

In the silence that followed, a cold wet finger ran across Rick's cheek. Another followed it. The man – Longmire – tilted his hat back and frowned at the clouds.

"What business is that of yours?"

The big man with the rifle didn't move, but it was if he had shifted closer to Rick, to speak privately in his ear. "There will be a hell of snow and cold pouring down on this county before morning. I can find you shelter and food. If you don't want it, say so. I have people waiting on me, and I'm already late." He turned his back on Rick, and tugged at the reins, backing the horse away from the people. He slid the rifle in the saddle scabbard and flipped the reins over the horse's head. "I'm sorry to pressure you, but me and Dog are leaving. Make up your mind."

He swung up in the saddle and sat there, looking down at Rick, at Michonne and Daryl, at Maggie and Tyreese and Aaron and Glenn. At Judith and Rosita and Patti and Chavez. "Well?"

* * *

To be continued...

* * *

 **Chapter Notes:** Thanks for the encouragement! I'm enjoying writing this so far, and I'm looking forward to some of the characters interacting.

 **Author's Notes:** Cross-over between Longmire and The Walking Dead. Canon divergence at S2.5- ish for Longmire, S5.5 - ish for The Walking Dead. Includes elements for the A &E/Netflicks show, Craig Johnson novels, and The Walking Dead tv show. Thanks, as always, for the world's greatest beta plus cheering section.

On-going multipart story. Rated T for canon-typical violence, plus a warning for Dixon mouth and Moretti mouth.


End file.
